Chapter 29
29
Gia heard a noise in the middle of the night. Was Ida sick? Did she need help?
Gia was just trying to come to full consciousness when her bedroom door swung open. She lifted her head, but the shape coming toward her was too big to be her mother or her father.
“What—” she started to say, but that shadow suddenly rushed forward and clamped a hand down tightly over her nose and mouth.
“Where’s your phone?” a harsh voice rasped.
Sheldon! Her mind, still sluggish from sleep, seemed to trip over itself in an effort to catch up. And once it did, she had so much adrenaline pumping through her body she had no strength, felt as limp as a wet noodle. How’d he get inside the house?
She couldn’t shout. She couldn’t even breathe. And he seemed to realize that at the same second and to take great pleasure in continuing to cut off her air supply.
“You think you’re tough, bitch?” he gritted out, bringing his face down to hers. “You think you can take me on? Huh, do you? Well, let’s see what you can do now.”
Gia began to buck and try to fight him off, but that only enraged him further, especially when she managed to bite his hand. He pulled back, cursing, and she started to scream, but he cut the noise off only a second later by wrapping his hands tightly around her throat. She could feel him crushing her windpipe as she fought. He was heavier than she was, and because he was above her, he had the advantage of being able to use his weight.
“Is that all you’ve got?” he taunted, breathing heavily in her ear. “There’s nothing you can do, bitch. How does it feel to get exactly what you deserve?”
Her eyes began to burn and water, and the dark image he made above her blurred. She knew she had only a matter of seconds before she passed out.
She couldn’t let that happen, couldn’t be defeated so easily. She just hadn’t been prepared for this, had never dreamed he’d be bold enough to come into the house. Striking when he had an open escape route was more like him. But she’d obviously pushed him beyond his normal boundaries, made him so mad he’d risk almost anything.
She was scratching at his arms, but that proved ineffectual. She had to reach a more vulnerable part of his body. She tried to knee him in the groin, but the blankets got in the way, and the attempt only made him laugh. “Look at you,” he said. “I could do anything right now.”
For a moment, she was afraid he’d act on that threat in a sexual way. She could tell he was trying to decide if he had the nerve to go that far. And that moment of hesitation, of brief indecision, was all she needed. Summoning every last bit of strength she had, she pressed her thumbs into his eyes and heard him yelp in pain.
He let go of her neck to pull her hands away—and she gasped for air, hauling in one lungful, then two. But still, she couldn’t scream. He was trying to get his hands around her throat, trying to return to the position that’d given him so much leverage when she managed to kick free of the bedding and knee him.
As he gasped in pain, she found her phone, which was under her extra pillow because she’d fallen asleep texting Cormac, and started pounding him in the head with it.
She wouldn’t have thought such a small device could do much damage, but he put up one arm to fend her off. Then he grabbed her wrist, trying to wrest her phone away. She was afraid he’d run off with it—and Margot’s contact information.
She had to relinquish it but letting go paid off. Grabbing the phone tied up one of his hands, and she was able to squirm out from underneath him by essentially falling out of bed.
He jumped off the bed to come after her, but she sprang to her feet and started throwing everything she could at him. A jewelry box. A figurine. A bookend. A book.
She didn’t realize she was screaming to high heaven until her father came running into the room and turned on the light.
“Oh, my God! What’s going on?” he shouted.
Gia thought Sheldon was planning to take her phone and run right through her father. She already knew he didn’t care if he hurt someone. But she stuck out her foot just in time. As she tripped him, he went down like a felled tree, and the lamp she hit him with next knocked him out cold.
She was breathing so heavily she thought she might throw up as she stood, wavering, still holding the lamp like a bat in case he tried to get up. “Call...for...help,” she managed to say to her stunned father, and he picked up her phone, which had gone skidding across the carpet almost to his feet.
After coming into the room and turning it toward her face to unlock it, he dialed 9-1-1.
“Gia? What’s going on?” Her mother came into the room, but she was so weak she had to cling to the door frame to remain standing.
“We got the son of a bitch,” Gia said. “We got him, Mom.”
“He broke in?” Ida said.
“He sure did. And he assaulted me.” Gia dropped the lamp and gingerly touched her throat, which hurt so much she could barely speak. “The police won’t be able to ignore this.”
Her mother looked stunned. “What was he trying to do?”
“He was after my phone, but he didn’t mind doing a little damage at the same time.”
Her father left the room and came back holding a kitchen knife. “He’d better not try to get away.”
Sheldon was starting to come to, but he wasn’t getting up. It didn’t appear that he could. He was rubbing his head where she’d struck him and writhing in pain, and he was bleeding. It looked as if she’d nearly cost him an eye.
Still, she wasn’t confident her father would be able to stop him if he got to his feet. But Leo had apparently called Cormac as well as the police, because only a couple of minutes later, Cormac came running down the hall, calling her name.
“What happened?” he asked. “Are you okay?”
She was trembling from all the adrenaline as she nodded. “It’s over,” she whispered hoarsely and sank back onto the bed. “Give me my phone. I want to call Margot to tell her she and the boys can come home.”
The police insisted both Sheldon and Gia go to the hospital. It didn’t take long for Sheldon to be examined, bandaged up and released into police custody, but the doctor made Gia stay a little longer for observation. While she was there, the police sent a photographer over to take pictures of the bruises that were starting to show around her throat.
“Sheldon’s in such big trouble,” Cormac told her. He’d been with her since it happened, had called and had his sister cancel all his appointments, which was well beyond anything Gia had expected. She kept telling him she was okay, but he didn’t want her to be alone after something that traumatic. Her parents had been there with her earlier, but Leo had taken Ida home so she could rest.
“He should be,” she said. “The vandalism was bad enough. But breaking and entering? Assault? He tried to choke me!”
“I know that, and so do the police. I heard someone talking about possible charges, and attempted murder was on the list.”
“I don’t think he was trying to kill me. At least, I hope he wasn’t. But his rage was certainly boiling over.”
“Regardless, depending on the charges they ultimately go with, he’s probably going away for five or ten years, maybe longer.”
“I’m happy for Margot, because that gets him out of the picture. But I’m sad, too. If only he’d been a decent human, it wouldn’t have had to be like this.”
“You can’t get someone like Sheldon to play fair. Did you hear what his buddy Waylan said to him?”
“The cop?” She shook her head. “When was this?”
“At the house. He was one of the officers who came to arrest him. I heard him say, ‘I tried to warn you to leave her alone. You just wouldn’t listen.’”
“The police gave him the benefit of every doubt.”
“There’s no way they can smooth this over.”
“Cece should be glad she broke things off as early as she did,” Gia said. “Poor Margot.”
“Have you had a chance to talk to your sister?”
“Not yet. Mom and Dad told her what happened. But the doctor was here with me at the time, so I couldn’t get on the phone, and then the police photographer showed up.”
“Want me to call her?”
Gia had been up almost all night, and the flood of adrenaline that’d kicked in during the attack was taking a toll. “I’m not sure I can do it right now. I can’t keep my eyes open.”
“Okay. Sleep,” he said. “I’m right here, and I won’t leave you. When you wake up, I’ll take you home.”
She forced her eyes to remain open long enough to look over at him, and he brought his chair closer, so he could hold her hand. “What am I going to do with you?” she mumbled.
He blinked in surprise. “What do you mean?”
“I’m afraid...I’m afraid I’m falling in love for the first time.”
That slightly crooked grin she found so charming curved his lips, and he stood up to drop a peck on her lips. “Would that be so bad?”
“Maybe. What if...what if you’re not falling in love with me?”
He smoothed the hair out of her face. “Gia?”
Her eyes were starting to close despite her efforts to keep them open. She was pretty sure the doctor had given her a sedative to get her to sleep, because she couldn’t seem to avoid the darkness that was quickly swallowing her up. “What?” she managed to say, trying even harder to stave it off.
“I tried not to fall in love with you—but it proved impossible.”
Santa Monica Pier was crowded. This could easily be the last weekend with such warm weather, so everyone was out to enjoy it while they could. But Margot didn’t mind the company. The babble of voices and laughing children around them only added to the festive feeling.
While the boys played in the sand next to her, trying to dig a moat for their castle, Margot turned her face up to the sun. She loved California. If the situation were different, she wouldn’t leave it. But she was going home on Monday. She’d already called Starbucks to tell them she couldn’t accept the job, after all, but she planned to keep her apartment until the lease was up. Depending on what happened with her mother, she might bring the boys back for the summer.
She wouldn’t miss the last few weeks or months of Ida’s life, wouldn’t keep her kids from being with either set of grandparents—providing Sheldon’s folks proved to be decent and fair with her and with them. She had yet to see how Peggy and Ron had reacted to their son’s arrest. She hadn’t talked to them. She was willing to bet they blamed her for everything. But she’d do what she could to be fair, if and when they were ready. She was just glad she no longer had to live under the yoke of fear and negativity that’d plagued her marriage. Now she could heal, grow stronger and live free and happy right in Wakefield.
Her phone rang. She dug it out of the beach bag to see that it was Gia and answered with an eager smile. “Hey! How are you feeling?”
“Much better.”
“Did they let you out of the hospital?”
“They did. I told them Cormac would take care of me.”
“Cormac again, huh? That name keeps coming up,” she teased.
“He’s a good guy.”
Margot laughed. She could tell that was the understatement of the year. Gia really liked the town vet. Ida and Leo thought he was “the one,” which was pretty ironic, given that he was Mr. Hart’s son.
“Are you sure you won’t mind having Mr. Hart as a father-in-law?”
“Whoa!” Gia said. “Take it easy. We just started dating.”
Margot pressed a hand to her hat so that it wouldn’t fly away in the breeze kicking up. “The fact that you didn’t say it will never happen tells me this guy is different.”
“He might be,” she admitted with a laugh.
“Your voice sounds better. It was so raspy after what Sheldon did to your throat. How’s the bruising?”
“Not pretty. Looks like I’m wearing a purple scarf.”
“I’m so sorry that happened.”
“Don’t be. I’m just glad you’re able to come home. Mom and Dad have missed you and the boys so much.”
“I’ve missed them, too.”
“What are you doing today?”
Margot gazed out to sea. “Just relaxing on the beach.”
“I wish I was there with you.”
“I wish you were, too. You’ll have to come back with me in the summer and spend a couple of weeks.”
“Maybe I’ll do that,” she said.
Margot hadn’t expected this answer. “Won’t you be in Coeur d’Alene running your business?”
“I might be able to squeeze in a vacation,” she said. “A girl’s gotta live.”
After they hung up, Margot checked her inbox. Sure enough, she’d received another email from Max. They’d exchanged several so far, and this morning he’d sent her a darling picture of his dog curled up with his late wife’s cat and told her about going to the symphony last night.
He was so different from Sheldon. But that was what she found appealing.
She hit the reply button and wrote a response.
I’d like to give you my number. I have to go back to Iowa to be with my family for a while. It could be months, depending on how my mother fares, but I hope we can continue to get to know each other.
She added her phone number and sent the message. Then she took the boys over to the pier for some rides and cotton candy. She was nervous about how Max would respond, wondered if he might end the relationship since she was no longer going to be in the area.
But when she checked her inbox again and read his message, a warm feeling washed over her.
I’m sad you have to leave, especially because this sounds health related. If it’s serious, I’m sorry. But I’m happy to have your number and will text or call you from now on.
I look forward to getting to know the beautiful woman I saw in the park.
Max
Under his name, he’d provided his number, too.